Eugène Carrière

Eug̬ne Anatole Carri̬re (16 January 1849 Р27 March 1906) was a French Symbolist artist of the fin-de-si̬cle period. Carri̬re's paintings are best known for their near-monochrome brown palette and their ethereal, dreamlike quality. He was a close friend of Auguste Rodin and his work likely influenced Pablo Picasso's Blue Period. He was also associated with such writers as Paul Verlaine, St̩phane Mallarm̩ and Charles Morice.

Biography

The eighth of nine children of an insurance salesman, Carrière was born at Gournay-sur-Marne ( Seine-Saint-Denis) and brought up in Strasbourg, where he received his initial training in art at the Ecole Municipale de Dessin as part of his apprenticeship in commercial lithography. In 1868, while briefly employed as a lithographer, he visited Paris and was so inspired by the paintings of Peter Paul Rubens in the Louvre that he resolved to become an artist. His studies under Alexandre Cabanel at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts were interrupted by the Franco–Prussian War, during which he was taken prisoner. In 1872–3 he worked in the studio of Jules Chéret. In 1878 he participated in the Salon for the first time, but his work went unnoticed. The following year he ended his studies under Cabanel, married Sophie Desmonceaux (with whom he would have seven children) and moved briefly to London where he saw and admired the works of J.M.W. Turner. Success eluded him for a number of years after he returned to Paris and he was forced to find occasional employment, usually with printers to support his growing family. Between 1880 and 1885 his brother Ernest (1858–1908), a ceramicist, arranged part-time work for him at the Sèvres porcelain factory. There he met Auguste Rodin who became and remained a very close friend.

At the Salon of 1884 one of Carrière’s paintings received an honourable mention, and the influential art critic Roger Marx became a champion of his work. Thereafter, Carrière found friends in most of the important artists, critics, writers and collectors of his time. He was a founding member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and of the Salon d’Automne (of which he was named honorary president). He played an influential role as an art teacher at Académie de La Palette and also exhibited with the Libre Esthétique in Brussels (in 1894, 1896 and 1899), the Munich Secession (in 1896, 1899, 1905 and 1906) and the Berlin Secession in 1904, with works including ''Sleep'' (1890), the celebrated portrait of Paul Verlaine (1891, Luxembourg), ''Maternity'' (1892, Luxembourg), ''Christ on the Cross'' (1897), and ''Madame Menard-Dorian'' (1906). Carrière died from throat cancer in 1906. The cultural world of Paris, from Georges Clemenceau to young artists such as Francis Picabia, was present at his funeral, where Rodin spoke of his "arresting ideas, expressed urgently and with a new clarity, undimmed by his suffering". Carrière's last words, recorded by his children, were: "Aimez-vous avec frénésie." ("Love each other wildly.")

The Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Salon d’Automne in 1906, as well as the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Libre Esthétique in 1907, held major retrospective exhibitions of Carrière's work.

Style and influence

Carrière had great admiration for many of the Old Masters, but in his early work he was mainly influenced by his contemporary Jean-Jacques Henner. He increasingly used a near monochrome brown palette with occasional touches of other colours and a painterly technique somewhat like that of Henner, and by the mid-1880s his work was characterized by a dense, misty brown atmosphere out of which the images emerged. ''The Sick Child'' (1885; Paris, Mus. d’Orsay) is an example of the theme of a mother and her child that Carrière often used and that has come to be regarded as typifying his work.

Carrière occupies an important place in fin-de-siècle Symbolism, which developed in the visual arts from the mid-1880s. The quality of poetic, dreamlike reverie that pervades his work particularly appealed to Symbolist critics such as Charles Morice and Jean Dolent; the latter described Carrière’s art as reality having the magic of dreams. Carrière also frequented the Café Voltaire and was involved in Symbolist theatre, bringing him into the mainstream of Symbolism. By employing a subdued palette, softening the focus and enveloping his figures in a thick, dark atmosphere, as in ''Maternity'' (c. 1889; Philadelphia, PA, Mus. A.), Carrière achieved a rarified sense of space, light and colour. His ethereal images have a quality of pervasive stillness.

Carrière’s strong belief in the essential brotherhood of Man led him to consider his family as a microcosm of mankind. Though most of his paintings are of family members or family relationships, his interest in the universal rather than the specific usually resulted in figures without much individuality presented in a formless environment. He also produced a number of portraits, with notable examples being that of the poet Paul Verlaine (1890; Paris, Mus. d’Orsay) and the sculptor Louis-Henri Devillez (1887).Louis-Henri Devillez in his Studio, by Eugène Carrière, 1887, tumblr.com
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Several of his works can be found at the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée Rodin in Paris, the Tate in London and the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade.

Selected paintings

File:Eugène Carrière Priam.jpg, ''Priam at the Feet of Achilles'' (1876), oil on canvas, dimensions unknown, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau
File:Eugène Carrière (1849-1906) - Winding Wool (Les Dévideuses) - L692 - National Gallery.jpg, ''Winding Wool'' (1887), oil on canvas, 99.5 x 87.6 cm., National Gallery, London
File:Eugène Carrière Femme de dos se déshabillant.jpg, ''Woman from Behind Undressing'' (c. 1890–95), oil on canvas 46.5 x 38.5 cm., collection unknown
File:Eugène Carrière, The Theater of Belleville (1895), oil on canvas, 220 x 490 cm., Musée Rodin, Paris.jpg, ''The Theater of Belleville'' (1895), oil on canvas, 220 x 490 cm., Musée Rodin, Paris
File:Eugène Carrière, Vierge au pied de la Croix.jpg, ''Virgin at the Foot of the Cross'' (1897), oil on canvas, Strasbourg Museum of Modern Art
File:Her-mothers-kiss-eugene-carriere.jpg, ''Le Réveil, Her Mother's Kiss'' (1899), oil on canvas, 94 x 120 cm., Pushkin Museum, Moscow
File:EugeneCarriere3.jpg, ''The Mothers'' (1900). oil on canvas, 283.2 x 362.7 cm., Musée du Petit Palais, Paris
File:Eugène Carrière - The Contemplator - 1946.283 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tiff, ''The Contemplator'' (1901), oil on canvas, 33.6 x 41 cm., Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
File:Eugène Carrière - Landscape in the Orne - 67.025 - Rhode Island School of Design Museum.jpg, ''Landscape in the Orne'' (c. 1901), oil on prepared paper mounted on canvas, 32.7 x 41.3 cm., Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Portraits and figures

File:Eugène Carrière - Portrait of a Boy - 1956.341 - Art Institute of Chicago.jpg, ''Portrait of a Boy'' (1886), oil on canvas, cm., Art Institute of Chicago
File:Eugène Carrière, Paul Verlaine (1890), oil on canvas, 149.8x 121.9 cm., Musée du Louvre, Paris.jpg, ''Paul Verlaine'' (1890), oil on canvas, 149.8x 121.9 cm., Musée du Louvre, Paris
File:Eugène Carrière - Portrait of Paul Gauguin - 1957.5.1 - Yale University Art Gallery.jpg, ''Portrait of Paul Gauguin'' (1891), oil on canvas, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
File:Woman Leaning on a Table, by Eugene Carriere.jpg, ''Woman Leaning on a Table'' (1893), oil on canvas, 65 x 54.3 cm., The Hermitage, Saint Petersburg
File:Femme regardant - Eugène Carrière.jpg, ''Woman Looking'' (date unknown), oil on canvas, 81 x 65,3 cm., Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires
File:Eugène Carrière - Two Women - 73.40 - Minneapolis Institute of Arts.jpg, ''Two Women'' (c. 1895), oil on canvas, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis
File:Eugène Carrière Girl with her Hair Down Thielska 72.tif, ''Girl with Her Hair Down'' (1900–05), dimensions unknown, Thiel Gallery, Stockholm
File:Eugène Carriere, Arsène Carriere, 1899-1900, NGA 177785.jpg, ''Arsène Carriere'' (1899-1900), oil on canvas, 55.56 × 46.36 cm., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Prints and graphics

File:Eugène Carrière - Newborn in a Bonnet (Le nouveau-né au bonnet - 2009.495 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif, ''Newborn in a Bonnet'' (1890), lithograph, 25.5 x 19.2 cm., Cleveland Museum of Art
File:Eugène Carrière, Alphonse Daudet, 1893, NGA 47651.jpg, ''Alphonse Daudet'' (1893), lithograph, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
File:Carrière - Henri Rochefort, 1949,0411.3187.jpg, ''Henri Rochefort'' (1896), lithograph, British Museum, London
File:Carrière - Portrait of Paul Verlaine, 1938.1259.jpg, ''Paul Verlaine'' (1896), lithograph, 52 x 40.6 cm., Cleveland Museum of Art
File:Eugène Carrière, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, 1897, NGA 57947.jpg, ''Puvis de Chavannes'' (1897), lithograph, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
File:Eugène Carrière, Rodin, 1897, NGA 52488.jpg, ''Rodin'' (1897), lithograph, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
File:Eugène Carrière, Sleep, 1897, NGA 5908.jpg, ''Sleep'' (1897), lithograph, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
File:Carrière - Jean Dolent, 1949,0411.3180.jpg, ''Jean Dolent'' (1898), lithograph, 22.9 x 17 cm., British Museum, London
File:Eugène Carrière Mlle Marguerite Carrière Singing Thielska 74.tiff, ''Mlle Marguerite Carrière Singing'' (1901), litograph, Thiel Gallery, Stockholm
File:L'Aurore-Eugène Carrière.jpg, Poster: ''Literary, Artistic, Aocial Aurore'' (1898), Bibliothèque Nationale de France

See also

* Auguste Rodin
* Paul Verlaine
*Stéphane Mallarmé
* Jean-Jacques Henner
* Picasso's Blue Period
*Léonce Bénédite
* Symbolism
* Fin de siècle

References

Further reading

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External links

*
Eugène Carrière: Symbols of Creations Exhibition
at Kent Fine Art, New York
Musée Virtuel Eugène Carrière
*Hollis, Richard

''The Guardian'', August 26, 2006
Paintings at Beauty and Ruin

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carriere, Eugene
1849 births
1906 deaths
People from Seine-Saint-Denis
19th-century French painters
French male painters
20th-century French painters
20th-century French male artists
French Symbolist painters
Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery
Art educators
19th-century French male artists